20 Things You Didn’t Know About Live And Let Die (1973)
9. The Compensations Did Not Speak For Themselves
Live And Let Die sees a milestone for civil rights in the Bond series as it marks Double-0 Seven's first interracial romance.
His lover is CIA agent, Rosie Carver, who appears to be a bumbling junior operative, but is actually on Dr. Kananga’s payroll. She is also truly terrified by the voodoo threat posed by the San Moniquan Prime Minister.
However, when Roger Moore went to see a screening of Live And Let Die in Johannesburg whilst shooting his next movie, Gold (1974), he noted that all of his love scenes with Gloria Hendry had been removed owing to the Apartheid system that was operating in South Africa at the time.
Live And Let Die took a great financial risk and a significant social and cultural step forward by providing James Bond with an African American lover - something that would not have been popular in some places at the time.
Nevertheless, even though screenwriter, Tom Mankiewicz had intended to reverse the races of Solitaire and Rosie Carver so that Diana Ross could be cast as the main Bond Girl, the risk that the film would be boycotted in the Southern States of America was far too great for this to be approved by the producers.